The Explorers 2009: ExxonMobil

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ExxonMobil is a big company with a history in Alaska to match. The company owns the largest share of the Prudhoe Bay unit and helped bring the trans-Alaska oil pipeline into operation in 1977 but also is responsible for the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, which only approached a legal conclusion in the last year. Following that spill, Exxon dropped its exploration program and only recently began pursuing it again with efforts to retain the Point Thomson unit on the eastern North Slope.

Following more than two years of legal battles with the state over the unit, Exxon spud a well at Point Thomson this past summer, the first drilling activity at the unit since 1983. Through the $1.3 billion gas cycling project, Exxon hopes to start producing hydrocarbon liquids from Point Thomson by 2014.

Exxon recently became involved in another long-sought-after Alaska project by partnering with TransCanada this summer on a state-backed natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to southern markets. The companies plan to hold an open season for the pipeline in 2010. Exxon currently leases some 135,000 acres of state land in Alaska.

Current exploration focus